Qualcomm Backs Ultrahuman's $365 Million Bet That Smart Rings Can Become Computers

Ultrahuman has closed a $70 million round that pushes its valuation to $365 million, roughly triple the $120 million mark it carried in 2023. The financing, disclosed to TechCrunch by a person familiar with the matter, brings Qualcomm Ventures into the cap table alongside Labcorp, Alpha Wave, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and Alteria Capital. The round splits into $65 million of primary equity and $5 million in debt, according to founder and CEO Mohit Kumar.

The thesis behind the check is straightforward: turn a health tracker into a general-purpose device. Kumar frames the shift plainly. "All ring devices today are like trackers," he told TechCrunch. "You put on the ring, it measures your heart rate, your movement, your sleep." Ultrahuman wants the ring to run programs directly on the device, cutting dependence on phones or cloud processing.

Qualcomm's involvement is not passive. The chipmaker is co-developing a new ring with Ultrahuman that will run on Qualcomm silicon, supplementing rather than replacing the Nordic Semiconductor chips the startup currently uses. Quinn Li, global head of Qualcomm Ventures, described the ambition in terms that go beyond wearables: "The future of AI is personal, ambient, and always on." Ultrahuman, in his framing, is building a new category of "personal AI devices."

The Hardware Roadmap

Kumar is not waiting on new silicon to test the concept. A software update due by the end of September will bring game-controller functionality and AI interaction features to the existing Ring Air and Ring Pro lines. Third-party developers will also gain the ability to build on the platform, a move that could open the door to use cases well beyond fitness, including acting as a car key or a pointing device.

The pitch leans on anatomy. A ring sits closer to a precision-input role than a smartwatch, which Kumar dismisses as "a phone on the wrist." A ring, by contrast, can double as a controller while carrying physiological signals like heart rate and skin temperature. "A game controller never reads your heart rate and your temperature, but this one does," he said, sketching a vision of games that respond to a player's biology as well as their hand movements.

That is an appealing narrative for investors chasing the next wearable form factor. It is also unproven at scale. Health trackers and general-purpose computing platforms have different design constraints, different developer ecosystems, and different failure modes. Ultrahuman is betting it can straddle both without diluting the core health business that built its brand.

The underlying numbers give the bet some credibility. Ultrahuman's annual revenue run rate sits at $140 million, up about 45% year over year, with a target of $200 million by January 2027. Unit sales have climbed to roughly 800,000 rings, up from about 700,000 in February. Around 12% of users pay for PowerPlugs, the company's subscription software tier, a figure that matters because it signals some willingness to pay beyond the hardware purchase.

The U.S. market tells a more complicated story. Ultrahuman was forced off U.S. shelves for much of the past year after a patent dispute with rival Oura, only returning with a redesigned Ring Pro. Demand for that device is now running at 18 to 20 times available supply, according to Kumar, who expects the company to recover its prior U.S. sales volumes next quarter and triple them over the following year as supply catches up. The U.S. still accounts for about 45% of quarterly revenue, with India contributing around 11%.

Growth has not come free. Kumar acknowledged Ultrahuman may not be profitable this year, citing spending on physical retail locations, brand investment, and clinical research in markets like India and the UAE, where offline touchpoints have proven effective at driving sales. That is a deliberate tradeoff, not a surprise, but it does push out the timeline to any liquidity event.

On that front, Ultrahuman is taking a more cautious path than its main competitor. Oura is reportedly eyeing a September IPO that could value it above $16 billion. Kumar wants roughly eight quarters of demonstrated profitability before Ultrahuman goes public, a track record he estimates will take eight to ten quarters to build. His earliest window for an IPO is 2028, a multi-year gap between the two companies' public-market ambitions.

The Labcorp relationship adds a second growth vector distinct from the Qualcomm computing play. The two companies are exploring whether ring-based blood-flow signals, combined with lab blood-test data, can surface risk indicators for cardiovascular health, fertility, and aging. Megann Vaughn Watters, who heads Labcorp's venture fund and strategic alliances, called the pairing an opportunity to create "new opportunities in personalized health" by combining longitudinal wearable data with deeper biological signals. Kumar declined to detail specific product integrations but said announcements are coming.

What Investors Should Watch

Three things will determine whether this round pays off. First, execution on the Qualcomm-powered ring and whether on-device computing actually differentiates Ultrahuman from trackers that already dominate the category. Second, whether U.S. supply recovery matches the demand Kumar is citing, given that market alone represents nearly half of quarterly revenue. Third, whether the Labcorp partnership produces a shippable diagnostic feature rather than a research collaboration that stays in pilot mode.

None of these are guaranteed. A 3x valuation step-up in three years is a solid return marker, but it was built on health-tracking fundamentals, not the computing platform Qualcomm is now funding. That platform remains unproven, developer tools are not yet public, and the smartwatch category offers a cautionary tale for hardware makers who promised general-purpose utility and delivered incremental app updates instead. Ultrahuman's profitability delay and the extended 2028 IPO horizon suggest the company itself is not treating this as a near-term inflection point. Investors backing the round appear to be underwriting a multi-year platform bet, not a quick exit.